i'm very strongly leaning toward getting an Arturia Minibrute...
what do you guys think though?

i wish i could afford a poly synth, but i've seen some pretty cool workarounds for what i think is the only problem with this thing at all. it's gonna be a while before i can actually go out and physically buy one, so right now i'm still in the research stage-- even though i've pretty much made my mind up at this point haha. but do you guys have any favorite synths, or do you even use/own any analog equipment?

I got an Alpha Juno 2 but it's the 'home' version (the Roland HS 80) equipped with built in speakers. It was made in 1986, two years before me! I love it. The sounds you can get out of it are amazing and weird. Really warm strings, pads and bass.

I used to own a Roland Juno, analog synths are nice but they do require maintenance and after some use you need to re-tune them just like you would a guitar or acoustic piano, etc. But to be honest some of the software emulations that are out now for analog synths sound EXTREMELY good, pretty much just like the real thing. I can't even tell the difference to be honest. Also the soft synths usually add more features so that you can get even deeper with sound programming.

But if you got the money to spend I definitely recommend getting a very good poly synth that also has mono functionality. If not then stick with soft synths as you will get a lot more for your money